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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23689645">an uprooted plant witch</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/binarylarry/pseuds/binarylarry'>binarylarry</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The 100 (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, F/F, Strangers to Lovers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:20:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,212</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23689645</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/binarylarry/pseuds/binarylarry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lexa is a young witch living in the city for her traditional soul-finding year. Although she misses her home in the forest dearly, she is determined to find her niche. In an unlikely* turn of events, Lexa needs Clarke’s help to do it. </p>
<p>*incredibly likely and very lesbian</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clarke Griffin/Lexa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>81</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. hopeless</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Excessive_Reader/gifts">Excessive_Reader</a>.</li>



    </ul><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i have been promising to write this for YEARS and the first chapter is finally here. to my soulmate, lova :u!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At twenty and on a traditional soul-finding year, Lexa is hopeless – an uprooted plant witch. Every witch has a niche, but she doesn’t know how to find hers. No matter how many candles adorn her apartment, she isn’t at home. Her native plants growing in her new space are potted out of place too. She’d be here for an endless year, alone and away from her family in the forest.</p>
<p>Lexa lives in an apartment like a sardine in the city. Looking out at the skyline from her studio, she’d like to say it’s home, but it really isn’t.</p>
<p>She knows her place in the Woods Clan. She can navigate the forest like air through her lungs, but in the city the air is stale, and her magic is weaker, disconnected. She doesn’t know how to be. Yet. Like the plants she’s growing in her apartment, she will adapt and grow strong roots.</p>
<p>Adjusting to the culture shock of city life took time. Anya had said to wait a month, but it has been a month. Lexa is impatient and it makes her feel childish.</p>
<p>Luckily for Lexa’s sanity, she’s expecting a visit from her mentor at midnight. Last night, Lexa cleaned up her place in anticipation of Anya’s arrival. There wasn’t much to clean up.</p>
<p>Night lengthens, shadows stretching over the city as the sun dips behind the buildings – golden hour. Coffee cup a constant in her hand, Lexa lets her legs dangle over the glass platform of her balcony and waits.</p>
<p>She pulls her leg up to tuck her ankle under the crook of her knee to balance a book on her lap. The spine is carefully uncracked, dried leaves pressed into the pages as bookmarks.</p>
<p>As the crescent moon crawls into its cradle in the sky, her coffee stays steaming in its charmed mug. She brushes her hand over the page and the letters illuminate, a helpful charm for her night reading tendency. Despite her passion for plants and the ease with which she pores over these pages, it’s another endless night. This moon marks a month in the city, and it has just been endless waiting. Useless.</p>
<p>Anya should arrive around midnight by broom. This reminds Lexa licensing her broom is on her long list of things to do – along with purchasing new planters, grocery shopping, and generally getting her goddamn life together.</p>
<p>She wants to impress Anya and prove her independence; however, she is grateful for any guidance her mentor could offer.</p>
<p>She has never felt more soulless than she does living in the city, yet here is where she needs to find her niche? Hopeless.</p>
<p>Amidst her existential crisis, which were happening increasingly frequently, Lexa notices the words dimming because her mind is elsewhere. She closes the book, feels the weight of it fully in her hands, then slides it across the glass into her apartment. The vines she’s grown as curtains part to let the book pass.</p>
<p>Lexa lays down and looks up at the stars and zooms out from her alarmingly meaningless existence. She’s a speck in the city, the world, this plane of reality – one of several. Her plane of existence isn’t even especially meaningful.</p>
<p>When Lexa zooms back in on herself, on her breathing, she feels alone. Utterly alone.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>“Hey, kiddo,” Anya says, dismounting her broom and sweeping Lexa into a half-armed hug. “You miss me or what?”</p>
<p>“Of course,” Lexa says, getting a nose-full of forest hair. “You smell like home.”</p>
<p>“Ah,” Anya says, pulling away with a small, knowing smile. Lexa is both comforted and uneasy that Anya can read her so well. She carefully rearranges her facial features – damage control.</p>
<p>“Please,” Lexa says, “come in.”</p>
<p>With a flick of her wrist, the glass door slides open smoothly. Anya eyes the sigils that glow faintly above the door as they open.</p>
<p>“How are you managing the protections?”</p>
<p>“As you taught me, so, very well,” Lexa says as they step through the vines.</p>
<p>“I don’t have to remind you to renew them on the full moon then.”</p>
<p>“You do not.”</p>
<p>Once inside, Lexa automatically snaps her fingers to light her candles.</p>
<p>“You and your candles,” Anya says, looking around amidst the flickering light. “How do you see anything in this cave?”</p>
<p>Anya takes a round glass bottle from the folds of her travelling cloak. She uncorks it and slips something small and round from some deep pocket. She swirls the bottle, thumb on the stopper. Orbs of light coalesce into what appears to be a small sun, which Anya throws into the air and charms to stay suspended upon descent.</p>
<p>“Much better,” Anya says.</p>
<p>“Show off,” Lexa says, blinking in the sudden brightness.</p>
<p>Lexa looks at her living space as her eyes adjust, and although it’s been a month, she hasn’t fully settled. Soul finding necessitates minimalism – she arrived in the city with nearly nothing. She took pouches of seeds from home, a capsule wardrobe, her beloved candles, a set of dragon bone knives, research related books (currently collecting dust), assorted essential sundries and kitchenware. It all fit in a leather messenger bag that Anya had gifted her years ago – enchanted with expansion, of course.</p>
<p>“May I get the grand tour?” Anya says, smirking since the apartment is so small it’s self-explanatory. Anya ambles into the kitchen, beelining for the fridge.</p>
<p>“Ah, yes, my humble abode, home to –” Lexa says, opening the refrigerator. It is at that moment of the already short tour that Lexa remembers she was supposed to go grocery shopping. “– a very responsible adult.”</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>“I haven’t seen you in a month and you pick Denny’s for our reunion?” Anya says.</p>
<p>“I haven’t gone grocery shopping,” Lexa says.</p>
<p>“Lexa,” Anya says. “Denny’s?”</p>
<p>“In my defense, it’s the middle of the night and everywhere else is closed.”</p>
<p>“If the city never sleeps why is this the only place awake?”</p>
<p>“It’s a wonder I’m awake.”</p>
<p>“Yeah right, night owl. Now tell me what you’ve really been up to,” Anya says. Her tone is light, but the slightest tug at Lexa’s life and she’s slipping. Although Lexa puts on a brave face, Anya can see through the bullshit.</p>
<p>She had flown into the city alone with her unregistered broom. Apparently illegally so. Paying that fine was the first city culture shock she had experienced, and it had been relatively downhill from there. Not that she wants Anya to dwell on those exact details.</p>
<p>“I’ve been busy,” Lexa says, skimming her menu pointedly.</p>
<p>“Busy, huh?” Anya says, opening her menu, playing along.</p>
<p>“As a bumblebee,” Lexa says. Anya laughs.</p>
<p>“Do you have time for a home-warming gift, my little bumblebee?” Anya asks, passing Lexa a small parcel.</p>
<p>“Thank you.”</p>
<p>Lexa tugs at the twine, unwrapping the beeswax to reveal a blank book, a candle, and a card. The book is hand bound with leaf embossed in gold on the leather cover, the first page with an encoded inscription she’d have to solve later. The candle is black, ceremonial – she’d have to remember not to burn it recklessly.</p>
<p>“Don’t read the card aloud,” Anya says. The card is black, all business, with <em>Indra</em> written in shimmering italics. “It’s a summons.”</p>
<p>Lexa tucks the card into the book carefully. Once she’s broken physical contact with it, asks, “Who are they?”</p>
<p>“I think she’d be a good mentor for you.” Lexa looks up and she must look concerned because Anya continues, “It’s very difficult to find your niche. You have a lot to learn and you can’t grow if it’s the same people teaching you.”</p>
<p>“I guess so,” Lexa sighs.</p>
<p>“It’s uncomfortable to grow up, but your soul-finding year is a great time to be alive, because when else can you be so indecisive? Indra is strict, but she’s consistent and you’re clever. Find a way to impress her.”</p>
<p>“I will.”</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Sometime later, the server brings the pair of them pancakes with the tired look of someone working through the night. They thank them for the food and eat, all the while Anya brings news of the woods. A powerful deer spirit passed through to bless the birth of a new child. Another witch on his soul-finding year is expected in the coming week – he’s a necromancer planning to specialize in environmental restoration. Lexa is of course missed and wished warm wishes.</p>
<p>Anya’s visit is brief because she’s only passing through to collect rare potion ingredients elsewhere. Lexa hopes she’ll have something to tell her mentor on the way back. For now, she slowly eats her pancakes until her plate is only syrup, enjoying her company.</p>
<p>Outside, Anya uncorks another bottle from the depths of her cloak and takes a swig. Her eyes glow faintly then settle, save her now vertically split pupils. She hugs Lexa goodbye, mounts her broom, and soars upwards, swallowed by the night.</p>
<p>Loneliness creeps in as she walks back to her apartment. She can hear her heartbeat in the silence, a reminder she doesn’t have time to wallow. The clock is ticking. She has two weeks before her meeting with Indra.</p>
<p>She has a lot of work to do.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>aaand i have a lot of writing to do! it's all planned out and i'm really excited to write it!! snail slow here we go </p><p>i haven't watched the 100 since s03e07 aired on march 3, 2016 and i am still so unendingly bitter (lexa deserved better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) so my characterization is based on what i remember and ofc gay as fuck</p><p>next chapter will be up next week! i'm bringing back thursgays!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. the library</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Lexa wakes up the morning after Anya’s left, for the first time in a month, her head is completely clear.</p>
<p>She has never had such a time sensitive deadline. In the forest, times is internal. It sounds silly here, in the linear logic of the city, but in the forest, time is a heartbeat that does as it pleases, pulsing evenly or not, skipping forward, or stretching until suddenly a task has been accomplished. Things got done, but not on the toll of a clock.</p>
<p>In the city, clocks are everywhere, always ticking. People don’t talk about what timelines work for them; they work for the clock. She might as well have been in a different dimension. It can be overwhelming, but if she wants to work in the city she has to be on their time.</p>
<p>Though she is not used to this strict temporal perception, it gives her purpose. A spark of hope in the dark, like the pseudo-sun Anya bottled and suspended in her apartment, shining brightly even with the sunlight streaming in her windows.</p>
<p>The sun is at its peak – she slept in.</p>
<p>She has been baking a lot of bread lately, so she builds a brunch around it. The knife deft in her hand, she saws through the loaf, placing a thick slice of fresh bread in the toaster. It just fits.</p>
<p>An egg sizzles in a frying pan while she steeps a tea, the leaves contained in a luminescent orb. Once the tea is ready, Lexa coaxes the orb to bob sleepily over to the compost and pops it like a bubble.</p>
<p>Lexa wishes finding her niche would be as easy as putting together the components of a good breakfast.</p>
<p>She supposes it’s not entirely dissimilar. She needs breakfast like she needs a niche, and she knows she needs to be in the kitchen to cook, so where are ideas put together?</p>
<p>
  <em>Oh! Of course. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The library. </em>
</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Lexa set out on foot, as she still hasn’t licensed her broom.</p>
<p>The library is easy to find. All she has to do is follow the colossal tree that grows from the ground until it nearly touches the sky, its crown crowding out the clouds.</p>
<p>The library looks like the libraries at home, but impossibly, impossibly bigger.</p>
<p>As she approaches, she can see it is simultaneously one tree and an amalgam of trees, all manner of greenery growing together up, up, up until she can’t crane her neck anymore up. That’s what Lexa likes about plants. They remind us we’re all connected. Even in the bigness of the world, there is an impetus to be together, tangled deep within all of us, like the roots of this tree, these trees, under the city.</p>
<p>The sheer size of the library is unfathomable, a feat accomplished only in a city where all sorts of folks with vision come together and create a marvelous hybridity of nature and magic and technology that makes her head spin.</p>
<p>This is a <em>library</em>?</p>
<p>There has to be a big enough idea in here to impress Indra.</p>
<p>The leather-bound book Anya gave her is tucked into the messenger bag on her shoulder, weighing heavy on her mind, but weightless in her charmed bag. She wants tangible research for herself before she resorts to puzzling out Anya’s encoded message. Besides, it’d be a good break between her new library books.</p>
<p>She’s leaving with all the books she can check out.</p>
<p>She enters through an arch of twisted branches, easily twenty feet high, and into sunlight – the trees grow around a transparent column that extends all the way up, opening to the clear blue sky. Lexa appreciates the advanced plant magic that must have gone into structuring this space. Some folks must have a very strong connection with this tree if is so tall, so old, and so willing to accommodate their tomes.</p>
<p>She isn’t sure where to stand because there is a constant stream of visitors into the ground floor, milling about, meeting up, reading, and eating. Lexa still isn’t used to seeing so many strangers.</p>
<p>Her gaze falls on an ethereal woman shrouded in earth tones walking by. She’s tall enough Lexa knows it’s rude to stare but she can’t help herself. With antlers emerging from her temples and eyes entirely black, books spill out of a tote bag held in a delicately gloved hand. Lexa has to consciously close her mouth and avert her eyes. They drop down to the hooves peeking out from the hem of her dress then look in search of a front desk.</p>
<p>She needs a library pin, not a mysterious woman to pine after.</p>
<p>Though it would be nice to know someone in the city. Soon she’d meet Indra, but she’d like a friend, too.</p>
<p>The front desk is dead center, helpfully labeled, with a pair of librarians working in tandem behind the desk. One librarian finishes helping a girl who has a group waiting on her, all with pointed ears, bubble tea in hand, and covered in glitter, while the other waves Lexa forward.</p>
<p>“Hello, dear,” the librarian says, cocking their head at an impossible angle, inquisitive. They have unblinking, owlish eyes, and Lexa can see feathers poking out of their head covering and turtleneck, on which is pinned a nametag Lexa in an unfamiliar language and <em>she/her</em> pronouns. “What do you seek?”</p>
<p>“A library pin, please.”</p>
<p>The librarian reaches deep into the desk and procures a pin in the shape of a silver ball – if she hadn’t read their website, she would think it was an earring.</p>
<p>“You’re magical, correct?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Here.” The librarian presses the pin into her hand. “It’s better to do yourself then.”</p>
<p>Once the pin contacts her skin and she can feel it pulling on her magic. She lets it siphon, encouraged by the librarian’s warm smile. The pin changes from silver to a deep green, then flattens into a leaf shape, texture etching into the metal as it melds with her magic.</p>
<p>The librarian watches as excitedly as Lexa does, though she must have seen this process a million times. The metallic leaves part, revealing the pin to be a monstera leaf.  </p>
<p>The librarian nods knowingly, saying, “Ah, you must be a botanist? A plant lover, indeed.”</p>
<p>“I am.”  </p>
<p>“Lovely, lovely, you will feel right at home here then.”</p>
<p>She truly does.</p>
<p>With the pin secured on her lapel, the enormousness of the library is fully realized, all its resources now available to her. A library pin is a very personal thing. It can take her to some very far places, yet the nature surrounding her feels very close to home.</p>
<p>“Do you know how to use the directory, dear?” the librarian asks. Lexa shakes her head. The librarian points to a row of columns a few feet away. “Place your hand on the pad, and don’t worry, it’s impossible to fall here if you’re wearing your pin.”</p>
<p>Lexa thanks the librarian and steps out of line towards the row of stone columns of varying heights. A four-fingered hand is outlined at the slanted top. She sees someone place their palm on a pad and the pin on their backpack glows faintly. The column slides forward into a set of stairs, the bottom reappearing at the top as they walk upwards.</p>
<p>Lexa looks up and sure enough there are floating staircases everywhere. She even sees what would be best described as a floating escalator for patrons with mobility devices. Guardian-accompanied children have platforms with raised sides on theirs, though the librarian said it’s impossible to fall – there must be an anti-gravity mechanism in the pin. Or a summons?</p>
<p>Lexa wants to know everything about the library, but first she needs to find some books.</p>
<p>As she approaches an available column, it rises to her hip height. She places her hand on it with intent, her pin glowing with a bit of her magic, and the column slides into stairs. As she climbs the floating staircase, the steps feel solid beneath her feet, and though it is dizzying to look down, she wants to be sure she’s attached to the stairs. Handrails rise immediately on both sides and she gratefully holds on.</p>
<p>Eventually the stairs curve to a landing and she steps off, watching as they return to the ground floor. Instead of stepping down slowly, they descend all at once, dropping vertically.</p>
<p>She feels at home in the library even though she’s never been here, and she is very far away from home. Trees always feels familiar. This tree feels strongly towards its guests, imbued with so much magic over so long. It’s a welcoming sensation it’s hard not be pulled in by.</p>
<p>There’s an undercurrent of simply knowing she needs to be here. She follows her intuition into the stacks, tipping her head to the side to read the titles. She recognizes the classics from her studies, though many names are new to her.</p>
<p>Her arms are soon stacked with possibilities. Knowledge new and old waiting to be read and repurposed.</p>
<p>As the day progresses, patrons with pallid complexions begin to appear, though Lexa couldn’t say if they are vampires or college students. Perhaps vampire college students.</p>
<p>Several hours pass and she realizes the sun has set and she should probably go, though the library is open all night and her bag is bottomless, her pin has a limit, and she can only process so much.</p>
<p>She could easily live the rest of her soul-finding year, or possibly even her twenties, in the library, but she is here for a reason. To research. To impress Indra. To prove she can do this and find her place as a witch.</p>
<p>For now, that involves going home to sleep.</p>
<p>Still, it’s difficult to leave.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>The sun had long since set and she is fairly sure she knows the way home.</p>
<p>As she nears her neighbourhood, street signs begin to look familiar. She pages through <em>Cactus in the City: How to Grow More with Less Magic</em>; the rest of the books safe in her messenger bag.</p>
<p>In the library she had hummed with magic like she couldn’t elsewhere in the city. The plants in her apartment helped but couldn’t compare to the constant flow of energy she felt in the forest.</p>
<p>A soul-finding year is supposed to strengthen a witch’s magic by giving them space to learn how to adapt to different environments.</p>
<p>It’s draining but she knows she has to do it because it works. Her magical stamina was nothing compared to Anya’s, and absolutely nothing next to raw exuberance of the elder witches of the Woods Clan. Orders of magnitude she couldn’t begin to imagine.</p>
<p>If she’s being honest, the real reason she’s so hesitant to license her broom isn’t only because paperwork is tedious and she has to look up where to go, but because she’s not sure if she’d have enough magic to fly it in the city.</p>
<p>It would be better than walking everywhere, though.</p>
<p>She sighs and lets herself into her building, tucking the book under her arm to free her hands, opening it as soon as the front entrance closes. If she licensed her broom, she could fly up to her balcony instead. Until then, it’s the elevator.  </p>
<p>As she reaches out for the button while reading her shoulder bumps into someone.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Lexa apologizes, looking up from her book. Her eyes linger slightly too long on their mechanical leg. She notices them noticing.</p>
<p>“No worries,” they say. The elevator door opens, and they gesture Lexa ahead. “Good book?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, thanks.”</p>
<p>“I haven’t seen you around, are you new?” they ask.</p>
<p>“I moved in last month, so it depends what you consider new,” Lexa says, closing the book on her thumb to mark the page.</p>
<p>“New to me. I’m Raven.”</p>
<p>“Lexa.”</p>
<p>“What brings you to the city?”</p>
<p>“I’m on my soul-finding year.”</p>
<p>“A witch in training then. What’s your specialty?”</p>
<p>“Plant magic.” Lexa tips up the title of the book in her hand. As they look at the book, she quickly looks them over, taking in the red leather jacket, long, dark ponytail, and steel toes – though only on their right foot. They’re so cool.  </p>
<p>“Well, this is me,” Raven says as the elevator door opens, smiling.</p>
<p>“Me too.” Lexa steps out of the elevator and the doors ding behind them. “I’ll see you around then.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, see you,” Raven says, walking down the hallway. Her gait is even, she must be used to her mechanical leg.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Inside, Lexa empties her books onto her empty shelves and starts a very late dinner. She makes it manually, without magic, instead casting a charm on the book to read itself aloud.</p>
<p><em>Now is the time to build your repertoire as a witch and your magical resiliency. Reimagine your relationship with magic,</em> the book reads. <em>Take your soul-finding year to strengthen your connection to your prime magical energy and expand it. Instead of drawing from a single, external source, learn to store magic within yourself and surround yourself with this newfound energy. To find your niche you must notice what you are drawn to and strengthen your soul so it will instead be drawn toward you. This will allow you to feel your magic flow no matter where you are.</em></p>
<p>All the while, the pseudo-sun brightens up her apartment, a testament to the strength of Anya’s potions, as the bottle remains suspended and burning. Lexa wants to be like that. She has left it because it’s a gift, reminding her she is supported, and she could grow stronger.</p>
<p>Besides, the plants like it very much. They’re flourishing.  </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>alternate lexa/raven dialogue: </p>
<p>Lexa: I'm on my soul-finding year.<br/>Raven: What's that?<br/>Lexa: Have you seen Kiki's Delivery Service?</p>
<p>can't believe i'm posting a week after as promised, this is very unlike me, and hopefully will continue?? next chp should be up in 2 weeks</p>
<p>the library is a dream and i would have been happy to just detail all its possibilities but then there would be no plot....and we still haven't met clarke.....heheheheheheh</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. lightbulb</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lexa reads nearly non-stop for days. She develops a loose routine revolving around studying. She takes notes and intermittently notices the time. Eating when the words stop making sense, sleeping when her charm to light up text at night won’t hold.</p>
<p>She tries and fails to grasp anything resembling a niche. She likes plants, so what? A niche is specific, it’s personal, it’s more than the broad category of botany. She doesn’t have to specialize, but it has to be especially her.</p>
<p>Undeniably, quintessentially Lexa Woods.</p>
<p>When she’s read all her books, she returns them to the library. The wonder she felt her first time at the library is still there, but it’s consumed by time constraints. She doesn’t want to waste time.</p>
<p>That’s a new concept to her – to “waste” time. As if the abstract concept of time is material enough to be wasted. On the bright side, she’s clearly adjusting to the city, though she doesn’t know if that’s entirely a good thing.</p>
<p>Everything seems overly complicated. Her niche should call to her, it should click. It should be easy like the way she is with plants. How plant life resonates with her magic, pulling magic from her and in turn replenishing her.</p>
<p>Though it wasn’t always this easy. Things she now considers easy were once seemingly impossible. She recalls her frustration as a child and Anya’s patience. She needs to be patient with herself now.</p>
<p>Of course this isn’t easy. She’s doing something for the first time. Obviously, she isn’t good at it. Not yet. But with time she will grow and adapt and foolishly think back on it as easy because she’ll have already done it.</p>
<p>Anya is right. Now is the time to be uncomfortable. Growing up is inherently uncomfortable because gradually nothing fits like it used to. Everything becomes bittersweet.</p>
<p>Feels good that she’s growing, but the realization that nothing stays the same is unshakeable.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Lexa sees Raven around the apartment building, instantly recognizable in her signature red leather jacket. They bump into each other in the elevator, exchanging pleasantries, passing each other as they’re coming and going, respectively.</p>
<p>While Lexa is predominately en route or returning from the library, and occasionally the grocery store, Raven travels all over the city, mostly for work – though Lexa is not entirely sure what she does and at this point is too afraid to ask.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>When her last week before her meeting with Indra is dwindling, Lexa is understandably stressed.</p>
<p>She has been reading to ocular migraine, which makes her magic fizzle when she tries even simple charms. Her mug of tea keeps getting cold before she drinks it because the heating charm won’t hold. She takes to putting a lid on her mug, but then she doesn’t remember she has tea and soon has many mugs all half drunk.</p>
<p>Maybe her niche is in the tea. Hot leaf juice. She shrugs. She could get into it.</p>
<p>No, that wouldn’t work. Tea doesn't resonate with her fully. Plus, it is too similar to Anya’s niche of ability enhancing potions. (Lexa had never felt an affinity towards extracting magical properties or the precision potion-making required. Also, she’d inevitably have to incorporate animal extracts too, which felt wrong as a vegan.)</p>
<p>What is she good at?</p>
<p>Anything?</p>
<p>Anything at all?</p>
<p>Lexa does what she always does when she has to clear her head. She makes a list.</p>
<p>She opens to a new page in the notebook Anya gifted her.</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span class="u">Niche</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Every witch has a niche. I’m a witch. I need a niche. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I’m on my soul-finding year so I need a niche <strike>now</strike> <strike>eventually??? </strike></em>
  <em>relatively soon </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I need a good ^<sup>enough </sup>concept for a niche so I can impress Indra</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I can impress Indra with something I am good at. (No need to reinvent photosynthesis.)</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>What am I good at?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Plants. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <strike>Growing plants? </strike>
  </em>
  <em>That’s implied.</em>
</p>
<p>She looks up from her scribbles at her plants. They are the root of her frustration, but how could she be frustrated with the plants themselves? The problem is her. She hasn’t been able to realize their full potential. That’s what’s frustrating.</p>
<p>She admires her plants in all their glory, an accumulation of their growth and the care with which she tends to them. The seeds she brought from home have found a way to flourish in her apartment. The seeds she bought in the city are doing well after she was able to adapt to their needs.</p>
<p>They had been doing noticeably better under the soft light of the pseudo-sun. Lexa stores it at night and brings it out in the morning as she brews her tea. She has it attached to twine strung from the ceiling, so she doesn’t have to expend on a suspension charm and risk breaking the bottle.</p>
<p>Though knowing Anya, it’s probably reinforced. After all, her suspension charm held for a week and she was not even physically present. </p>
<p>The lavender in particular is responding positively, its fragrance filling the apartment. Lexa gets up to look closer. The lavender has grown unusually large, the stalk the diameter of a dollar rather than a dime, corolla opening big enough to encapsulate a finger. Taking stock, she realizes a lot of her plants are unusually large. In full bloom when typically they wouldn’t yet be.</p>
<p>Is this all the effect of the pseudo-sun?</p>
<p>Lexa waves her hand and her notebook snaps into it as if shot from a rubber band.</p>
<p><em>Everything grows, but how?</em> is the starting point of her puzzling. If a pseudo-sun could have this enlarging effect, what else could be tinkered with? How could different plants respond to magical light?</p>
<p>Sure, she could bottle light and grow plants extraordinarily efficiently, but Anya did this on a whim for better lighting. What could she do? She has to go bigger.</p>
<p>Half caught between a void of existentialism regarding herself as an insignificant speck in this plane, which was in turn only one of several, she stops.</p>
<p><em>Everything is connected</em>.</p>
<p>The lavender to its roots to its pot to its shelf in its apartment in its building, yet the lavender could be anywhere and zoom out enough and it’s still really the same place. To go bigger, to actually go anywhere would be to take it to another dimension.</p>
<p>Standing underneath the pseudo-sun she laughs at her literal lightbulb moment – <em>extra-dimensional light.</em></p>
<p>What would be the effect of magical light from other dimensions in her own? It should theoretically be compatible...though the effects may be unpredictable...</p>
<p>Extra-dimensional travel was possible if you knew the right people…This could be it. This could be her niche.</p>
<p>She is struck with the immediacy of needing to know if this has been done before. She slings her messenger bag over her shoulder and leaves for the library. She hardly registers the outside word is dark, her mind is fixed on this radiant idea of light.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>hello, hello! this bit was too long to be tacked on to the end of the last chapter or the beginning of the next chapter, and i wanted to give enough space for it to feel organic!! </p>
<p>tiny spoiler: we, my dear intrepid readers, will be meeting clarke next time we meet, and i want to make sure i get it right! additionally, i'm slammed in summer classes rn so i expect the next chp will be up some time in july</p>
<p>do let me know what you thought in the meantime!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. fortuitous meeting</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hope ya missed me because this is a long one</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When two weeks from Anya’s visit have come to pass, Lexa picks up the summons – a black card with <em>Indra </em>in spidery italics. She has a solid enough theoretical proposal and she’s as ready as she’ll ever be on her own. She needs help, and Anya has given it to her. A new mentor.</p><p>The card shakes slightly in her hand.</p><p>She takes a deep breath.</p><p>When the tremor stills, she says, “<em>Indra,</em>” and vanishes.</p><p>Her apartment left vacant, aside from a card fluttering to the floor, now blank, atop a pile of Lexa’s clothes.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Lexa blinks, but her eyes have no light to adjust to. She accepts the sudden darkness and takes blind stock of herself. She is slightly queasy, a common aftereffect of a summons. She’s uninjured. She might be lying down, but her spatial sense is completely incapacitated.</p><p>She reaches her arms out hesitantly in the dark. Her outstretched arm touches nothing, yet she feels resistance as she reaches. It’s as if she’s been swallowed by fabric, though she deduces the substance surrounding her must be a liminal space filled with the residue of the summons.</p><p>The substance is gelatinous and difficult to maneuver through – no help at all in orientating herself. The lack of sensory input has her folding in on herself, but at her core, she’s of course full of magic, and the substance responds to magic, being made up of magical energy itself.</p><p>She brings her hands up to her cheek, fills her fingertips with intent, and the thick fabric dissolves around her face, accepting her presence has been summoned.</p><p>Now she can see.</p><p>She pushes herself upright, her senses returned. She finds herself sunk into a black depth underneath a bright white ceiling in which she can see the faint outline of door. She moves towards it, unsure of how close it is, or how she is supposed to get up to the ceiling.</p><p>As she slowly eases out of the liminal space, as if pulling herself out of a pool, the substance stays on her body as a suit, detaching from the space as it deposits her on a white wall.</p><p>Once she finds her footing, the gravity in the room shifts abruptly. The white wall is the floor and the white ceiling is, and always was, the opposite wall.</p><p>Without the viscous resistance, she moves freely. She brushes her hands down her legs, as if dusting herself off, imbuing the suit with magic, and the fabric elongates and pulls away into a full skirt that swishes slightly as she walks.</p><p>She’s sure her arrival has been noted, so she doesn’t want to spend too much time playing with the fabric, though it is enticing. She resolves to gather a handful of fabric around her waist and pull, tying it into a bow in the back to give the dress her favourite cut. There’s nothing she can do about the colour – it remains a depthless black.</p><p>As she approaches the door, she hears a noise behind her like a splash of water. She turns in time to see someone emerge from the blackness, breaking through the surface tension easily, with a grace Lexa knows she did not embody earlier.</p><p>Their body suit ripples effortlessly as they emerge and stiffens into a structured garment. They take a section off their arm and it becomes a scrunchie.</p><p>“I was supposed to be here before you, but better late than never,” they say as they tie their long, curly hair into a ponytail.</p><p>“Ah,” Lexa says, smiling to hide her confusion, standing halfway between them and the door.</p><p>“Is that how you want it to fit?” They gesture to her dress. “It takes a while to get the hang of.”</p><p>“I like it,” Lexa says, then, still unsure of who they are, “Do you think it’s okay?”</p><p>“Yeah, it’s cute.”</p><p>“Thanks.”</p><p>As Lexa is about to cave and inquire their identity, they say, “I’m Octavia. Indra’s apprentice,” striding past her to open the door, ponytail swinging slightly. “I’ll show you around until Indra receives you.”</p><p>“Oh thanks,” Lexa says, following behind. “I’m Lexa.”</p><p>“I know.” Octavia smiles, walking without hesitation down a long corridor lined with identical white doors. Lexa falls into step beside them. “What are your pronouns, by the way?”</p><p>“She/her,” Lexa says.</p><p>“Cool. Me too.”</p><p>Though they’re walking side by side and are roughly the same height, Lexa feels like she can’t keep up.</p><p>Octavia is succinct in her explanation of the workspace, pausing periodically to answer Lexa’s questions. Lexa pushes her hands into the skirt and pockets form around them. It’s nice to have somewhere to put her hands.</p><p>Their whirlwind tour, comprising mostly of closed doors immediately forgotten and the impression of playful professionalism Octavia exudes, comes to an end at yet another door, which Octavia gestures her to open.</p><p>Lexa immediately knows Indra is behind the door, as her magical presence precedes her, fully felt throughout the hallway leading to the door – calm yet observant.</p><p>“Hope your meeting goes well, Lexa,” Octavia says. “If not, well, she’s already got me.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Lexa says, unsure if she’s kidding because Octavia gives quite the competitive impression.</p><p>Octavia winks at her with an award-winning smile, turns on her heel and heads back down the maze of hallways she navigates with ease. She quickly disappears around a corner.</p><p>While Octavia is confident and established, as anyone would expect of a witch nearly finished her soul-finding year, Lexa is merely at the beginning.</p><p>She takes a deep breath, steadies her hands, and opens the door.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Inside, Indra sits in a grey wingback chair next to a table set with a tea service. Though the room has a magnificent view of the city through floor to ceiling windows, Indra faces Lexa with a wide smile. She wears a well-cut black suit. Ink peeks out of the collar of her starch white shirt, spilling up her neck in bold strokes, the tattoo ending in semicircles around one eye. Her upright posture and impeccable attire demand respect and frankly, admiration.</p><p>“Lexa,” Indra says in a deep, clear voice, standing as Lexa enters.</p><p>Lexa sits as Indra gestures her to sit, saying, “Hello.”</p><p>She settles into the chair, sitting up straight. She feels her nerves sink as her professional personality rises to the surface, bringing a lightness to her face, evenness to her breath.</p><p>“I am Indra, as you know. Anya has spoken highly of you. How is she?”</p><p>“She’s well. She passed through two weeks ago on collection and should be home soon. She’s due to take on a new apprentice shortly.”</p><p>“Have you taken on her precision with potions?”</p><p>“I try my best, but no one can match Anya.”</p><p>Indra smiles broadly at that. Lexa laughs politely, wondering how well they Indra and Anya know each other.</p><p>“Care for a tea?”</p><p>All it takes is a glance from Indra at the teapot for it to pour tea into each teacup fluidly, then set itself back on the table without so much as a clink.</p><p>Lexa can feel the magic that radiates off Indra effortlessly, filling the entire room with her presence. Her magic has a firm, but satisfying feeling, as if everything is exactly in place. Not forced, rather nudged into alignment.</p><p>Indra takes her tea black while Lexa spoons in sugar, trying not to clink the glass too much.</p><p>“May I hear your proposal?”</p><p>“Of course.” She consciously tries to steady her hands. Her palms are sweaty, but she knows it’s a good idea. <em>Breathe. </em>“Since my specialty is plants, to narrow my niche, I propose growing plants under extradimensional light to make those unique properties readily available on our plane.”</p><p>Lexa pauses. The words on the tip of her tongue are careening over but she forces herself to stop, to allow Indra to speak, provide guidance.  </p><p>Indra lowers her teacup onto its saucer and nods once affirmatively.</p><p>“Brilliant. Tell me more.”</p><p>“Witches do travel to other planes and bring back plants, but according to my research, cutting out planar travel and growing here has not been done before. However, I believe it would mitigate migration tensions. Theoretically bottling extradimensional light is doable but transporting it across planes is another matter.”</p><p>“Yes…” Indra trails off, eyes moving to the side in thought. “Have you already applied for a travel permit?”</p><p>“Not yet. Admittedly, I am a bit confused by the process.”</p><p>“It is tedious, but necessary. I will have the appropriate forms delivered to you. Any other current considerations?”</p><p>“I am working on a design for a sealed greenhouse to grow them here.”</p><p>“Would you use our seeds or theirs?”</p><p>“I would like to start with ours out of familiarity, but would eventually branch out into theirs, and propagate them here. Again, the focus is on cutting out the travel since it can be dangerous.”</p><p>“Not if you know who to travel with. I will reach out to my contacts to find a witch with a suitable extradimensional niche. A reliable contact should also allow you to fast track some of the paperwork.”</p><p>Lexa consciously closes her open mouth to say, “That would be amazing. Thank you.”</p><p>“Of course. I will assist you in any way you can. Your idea is brilliant and politically conscious, though ambitious.” Indra sips her tea. “I was young once. We all need help from time to time.”</p><p>Lexa really wants to know what Indra was like when she was young. Sometimes if you wait when older people talk about the past, they go on unprompted. But Indra is focused on the future.</p><p>“Your task for the week will be to set up the particulars of where you would like to go and what you would like to grow. I will find someone trustworthy to take you.”</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>“I am needed elsewhere momentarily,” Indra says, glancing at her wristwatch. “Feel free to finish your tea. Octavia will collect you afterward.” Indra rises and Lexa feels compelled to do the same. “We will meet in one week. Less so once you are on your feet, so to speak.”</p><p>“Until next week,” Lexa says with a nod. “It was lovely to meet you.”</p><p>“We have met before, my dear.” Indra turns her head and the black ink of her tattoos becomes a deep green, the thick lines thinning to trace an intricate design of a familiar wood, signifying her status in the Woods Clan. A rush of warmth and affection for Indra floods Lexa. “I have known you since birth.”</p><p>As the forest rising from Indra’s skin coalesces back into bold black lines, Lexa unconsciously raises a hand to the back of her neck where her tattoo is – a line down her spine, solid trees on one side, mirrored outlines on the other, filled with an explosion of colour representing the spirits of the forest.   </p><p>Indra initiates an embrace, then leaves without looking back. She knocks once on the white door, which blackens at her touch, and opens onto a void through which Indra walks through. Lexa watches her as she goes and wonders how many people she’s connected to in this wild world.</p><p>She’s never been alone, and she’ll never be alone.</p><p>
  <em>Everyone is connected. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Lexa finds herself at home, though she doesn’t quite recollect how she returned… Octavia saw her out with a summons to return the following week. Lexa made her way home on foot, engrossed in puzzling out the logistics of her proposal, especially now that it has been accepted by Indra.</p><p>Indra said it was brilliant!</p><p>Though she is eager to continue, her appetite would say otherwise. Her successful meeting is cause for celebration, but Lexa still hasn’t really made any friends in the city. It would be too much to ask Octavia to go out to eat because they literally met today. She could ask Raven, but how? Slip a note underneath her door like a stalker?</p><p>She could continue to be alone, but it would be nicer to have someone to talk to.</p><p>Regardless, she decides to give herself the afternoon off to process her proposal meeting and replenish her magic. </p><p>She bakes an apple pie with a soft soundtrack playing in the background, making the crust from scratch, and slicing the apples with her dragon bone knife.</p><p>When the pie is done, she spontaneously brings a slice over to Raven’s door on a leaf shaped plate. After all, sharing baked goods is a neighbourly thing to do. Before she can lose her impulsive nerve, she knocks, hovering one plate over the other to free her hand.</p><p>To her slight surprise, because Raven is constantly coming and going, Raven opens the door, greeting Lexa with a smile and ushering her in, plucking the plate out of the air. Lexa often finds that if she can muster the initiative, things usually turn out alright.</p><p>This is her first time in Raven’s apartment. They are only acquaintances, so she tries to refrain from ogling. However, even a cursory glance reveals Raven’s place is as cool as she is.</p><p>Raven guides her into the living room, and gestures at the coffee table, where Raven puts her plate. Lexa sits on an overstuffed, well-loved red couch, with her plate on her lap.</p><p>“Spoon or fork?” Raven asks.</p><p>“Spoon, thanks,” Lexa says.</p><p>Lexa looks around the living room as Raven makes her way towards the kitchen.</p><p>Across from the couch is a flat screen mounted on the wall. Posters of punk rock bands Lexa has heard of but not properly listened to line the walls in black frames. A red guitar rests in a stand next to an armchair casually, as if Raven regularly bursts into song.</p><p>A work bench underneath the window that looks out over the balcony is overflowing with half-finished gadgets and gizmos, with more tools hanging from a pegboard mounted to the wall. A fair amount of grease and paint splatters adorn the stool and surrounding floor.</p><p>She might not be getting her deposit back.</p><p>Raven returns from the kitchen with a spoon and a fork, sitting on the opposite end of the couch.</p><p>“Thanks,” Lexa says.</p><p>“No, thank you, this looks delicious. Did you bake this?” Lexa nods. “Amazing,” Raven says, mouth already full of a generous bite of apple pie.</p><p>“You play guitar?” Lexa can’t help but ask, motioning with her spoon.</p><p>“Technically, but I’m still learning chords,” Raven says between bites. “It’s harder than I thought it would be, but I’m pretty good with my hands.” Lexa eyes the workbench. Raven follows her gaze and laughs. “Yeah. I’ve got a lot of unfinished projects. My spare room is even worse.”</p><p>“It’s nice to have things to do, though.”</p><p>“I get more done when I have twenty projects on the go versus two. That way if I get stuck, I have something else to do. That doesn’t always work for work stuff, though.”</p><p>“I know I’ve probably asked before, but I forget – what do you do, again?”</p><p>“I’m an engineer. I mostly do contract work, but my main gig is my body mod business.” Suddenly the odd shapes on Raven’s workbench make sense to Lexa – they are prostheses. Arms, legs, and all manner of limbs. Lexa has about a hundred questions, but Raven turns the conversation to her. “How’s your soul-finding year going?”</p><p>“Great, actually! My mentor approved my proposal today.”</p><p>“Cool.”</p><p>“Very.” Lexa bites her tongue, not sure if she should elaborate.</p><p>“You’re into plant magic, right?”</p><p>“Magical botanist, at your service.”</p><p>Raven laughs. “I’d kill a cactus, so I’d probably need your services. Seriously though, what was your proposal?”</p><p>Lexa doesn’t need further prompting to launch into her proposal. Raven listens attentively, interjecting questions that only fuel Lexa to talk faster. She’s delighted Raven not only keeps up but races ahead.  </p><p>Soon their pie plates are stacked on the coffee table, temporarily forgotten, as Lexa makes a point Raven pivots into another, tangents tangling together into a spiraling conversation, spinning with laughter and a surprising number of things in common. Namely, they both have a penchant for starting intricate passion projects and finishing them a bit later than expected.</p><p>Raven shows Lexa the works in progress on her desk, explains the basic mechanics of a prothesis, and the added benefits of magical augmentation. Raven is half magical on her late mother’s side, which explains the faint aura Lexa can feel around her, a fuzzy static electricity.</p><p>Raven says, “I have just enough to juice to kickstart pieces, but I get it sealed by someone else.”</p><p>This only sparks Lexa’s curiosity about the vast diversity of magic present in the city. Unlike the woods, in which everyone more or less has the same flavour of magic, a certain familiarity that comes from drawing from the same source, city folk seem to flock from all over, mixing magic in entirely new ways. Endless combinations. Remarkable opportunities for collaboration.</p><p>When they inevitably realize how late it is, Lexa says she should probably get going, and Raven thanks her again for the piece of pie.</p><p>“You’re welcome to come over anytime, baked goods or not!” Raven calls down the hall from the doorway.</p><p>“You too!”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>That evening, energized from the fact that she has properly made a friend, Lexa is not ready to sleep any time soon. She splays her books around her and sets to work conceptualizing a sealed craft room.</p><p>The sun sets over the city and a starry blanket settles over the buildings, tucked over the surrounding mountains, spanning the nearby sea.</p><p>Lexa’s concentration pulls inward, the edges of her consciousness fading, reconstructing as a simple study bubble of desk, chair, books. This awareness deepens until only books exist. Pages flip themselves; pens notate at thought speed. Lexa levitates in her chair – she can’t contain all this energy. The books rise with her.</p><p>The words glow and project from their pages as she pastes relevant phrases into her notebook, flicking her wrist to rearrange the configuration of books. Her concentration unbroken, she is unbothered by awareness that she is exerting an immense amount of energy to remain focused and floating. Instead, she follows her attention down a rabbit hole into the night.</p><p>She does not notice when her candles burn down to the wick and flicker out, one by one, as the night bores on and she continues to pour over her pages. She eventually notices, not because everything has gone dark, but because she can’t read as clearly. She snaps her fingers to light another candle.</p><p>She does not notice what candle she lit because her apartment is home to countless candles and right now, she doesn’t care about anything besides her research. She floats in the epicenter of her flipping pages, unfocused on anything not in front of her. For example, below her.</p><p>She does not notice how her hardwood floors are coated in candle wax or that the wax dripped and hardened into a shape of particular importance. Instead, she reads up on extradimensional travel, mouthing along to magic unfamiliar to her tongue.</p><p>While she does not notice, the candle notices her because the ceremonial words she mouths awaken and call to it. She does not look up from her books when that candle burns black, blackening the wax melted on the floor in the shape of a pentagram.</p><p>Finally, her fixation is broken when a sultry voice behind her says, “You summoned me?”</p><p>Lexa finally looks up.</p><p>The books around her drop with a resounding thud.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHO IT IS........! </p><p>big chapter! big reveal! you've made it to the end but it's really only the beginning!</p><p>it is a mystery unto me when the next chapter will be up but i am v excited and welcome all your thots until then!!! it is very magical to make this whole thing up in my head, do my best to translate it into legible words, and then hear what strangers think about it on the internet, HELLO OUT THERE!!</p><p>also, to whom i am actually writing this for, your fave tropes are coming up, i can't say anything more or i will spoil it, but...s:o:on.....!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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